


to err

by thedevilchicken



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Death, Gods, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Non-Consensual, Prophecy, Sacrifice, Victim Treated Like a Lover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-19 18:15:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17006691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: Achilles follows Troilus into the temple of Apollo. He has work to do, and a prophecy to fulfil.





	to err

**Author's Note:**

  * For [summerdayghost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerdayghost/gifts).



The Trojans call him son of Priam, but Achilles knows better than that. 

The fact is, divinity knows divinity; what is divine within Achilles recognises it in any others of the same persuasion that he might meet. He knew it in Heracles, once upon a time at Chiron's table, and he knows it in Sarpedon of Lycia, who is set to fight against Greece with the Trojans. He knows it in the youth standing before him, too. What the Achaeans whisper about him is true: Troilus is Hecuba's, yes, but not by the king of Troy. He is Apollo's son. Achilles can feel it. 

Of course, where Apollo's children are concerned, that moment of instinctive, bodily recognition is not something he requires. Children of Zeus feel powerful, as if lit up from within with a spark of their father's lightning bolt. Children of Ares feel strong, as if filled up with their father's thirst for war. Children of Apollo, on the other hand, are almost uniformly radiant; they are beautiful, which necessitates no special skill in its perception. But it is, perhaps, because Achilles can both see and feel Apollo's radiance within Troilus, Prince of Troy, that desire cuts him as keenly as it does. 

Outside, by the fountain, he reached up one hand and tore Troilus down from the back of his horse. Troilus fled into the nearby temple, a distraction so that his sister might escape, and despite his knowing this, Achilles followed him inside. Perhaps one day he will concern himself with Polyxena but she is entirely earthly and, as such, she does not tempt him as her brother does. Neither is she the reason he has come. She is not the reason he was sent.

They stand now at the darkened altar in the braziers' hot, unsteady light. There could be no escape but through him, and though Troilus is not small, and Troilus does not cower, he is not Achilles's match. 

"You know who I am," says Troilus. 

"Yes," replies Achilles, though he understands the words were not a question to be answered. 

"You know who I am within myself. As Helen does."

Achilles met Helen once, not so very long ago. Beautiful Helen, prized Helen, pretext for Agamemnon's fucking war that Achilles is not sure he wants to play a part in. She is a daughter of Zeus and he knew it in the very first instant that they stepped into each other's presence; her sister is a daughter of Tyndareus, and he knew that in a much more mundane way. After all, Castor and Clytemnestra are to their twins what night is to day: paler, and colder, and wanting for dawn's divine light. 

"Yes," Achilles says. "I know that." 

"You mean to kill me." 

"Yes." 

"In this place?"

"Yes." 

"But you know who..."

Achilles raises his brows and quickly, Troilus understands. Achilles can see the realisation of it in the expression settling on his face and in the stiffening in his body. 

"You mean to kill me _because_ you know," says Troilus.

Achilles nods curtly. He has yet to draw his sword, but he will do so, inevitably, inexorably, and Troilus clearly knows this. Troilus does not say _my father will be angry_ , because it is clear Achilles knows this. He does not say _please spare me_ , because he knows Achilles won't. As he draws himself up tall and taut and very brave, what he says is, "Do it quickly," but Achilles cannot promise this. He would like to say he wishes that he could, but that would be a lie. He is many things, but he is not a liar. 

What is divine within Achilles recognises what is divine in Troilus, and he wonders. He wants to know how Troilus's skin might taste against his lips, drenched as it has been by Trojan sun. He wants to know how his blood might taste against his tongue, infused as it is with Apollo's light. He grits his teeth. He clenches his jaw. He clutches tight at the hilt of his sword that hangs there ready at his waist. Achilles is not known for his steadiness, for his moderation, or his control. He does not expect to keep any of these things for long. 

"Will you do what I tell you to?" Achilles asks. It sounds much like a response Troilus's request for his celerity, as if a prerequisite for Achilles's compliance, and though it's not he does not clarify. He tells himself that's not a kind of lie within itself. 

"What do you want?" Troilus asks. He sounds careful. He sounds wary, for which Achilles cannot blame him.

"Take off your clothes, prince," Achilles replies. He sees no reason to elaborate. It gets the point across.

Troilus understands. He does not look pleased, but he understands, and after a moment's quiet consideration - Achilles could not call it hesitation as it seems to him to be quite measured and deliberate - he unties the belt from about his waist and drops it to the temple floor. His short chiton hangs more loosely then against his skin, still creased above his hips where his belt cinched it in, and he reaches deft fingers to the pins that hold it at his shoulders. He drops the pins, too, deliberately, with a clatter of gold on stone, then he lets the tunic fall. He is naked beneath and in his veins, Achilles's blood burns with all the fire into which his mother dipped him. He thinks sometimes he took in the flames just as much as he did the ambrosia.

His skin bared in the firelight there in the temple of Apollo Thymbraios, at the altar by the feet of his divine father's towering statue, Troilus could almost be a god himself. He is as exquisite in his composition as if he were a statue hewn from living flesh in place of marble, from his elegant neck to his muscled arms, from the bow of his lips to the thick length of his manhood. He is radiant perfection. And, in that moment, Achilles finds that he both adores him and despises him. He is not sure which it is takes precedence.

He steps forward. He takes Troilus's bare shoulders in his hands and feels him flinch at his touch, but that does not deter him. He runs his palms and his fingertips down Troilus's long arms. His fingers encircle Troilus's wrists. His grip tightens.

The Trojan prince is perhaps just half Achilles's age, a beautiful ephebe not yet twenty years old, and Achilles is no great giant of a man, not like Ajax who seems to dwarf both the Trojan and Achaean armies to a man, so it should be no surprise that they stand eye to eye, equal in at least that one way. That small parity makes it all the easier for Achilles to press his mouth to Troilus's. It makes it all the easier for him to slip the fingers of one hand into Troilus's curling hair and kiss him, softly, as if he does so for no other reason but affection. And Troilus, perhaps because he thinks that it will spare his life, perhaps because he believes in what Achilles has allowed him to misapprehend of their situation, lifts his one free hand to rest cautiously at Achilles's waist. He returns the kiss. Achilles is unsure if he wishes him to pretend he's willing or if that ruins it entirely. 

He knows what the gods would do, were they in his place. He knows what Zeus would do; Achilles is not the son of Zeus, but he might have been. Zeus wanted Achilles's mother, but the prophecy said that any son of Thetis would be greater than his father and so he left the having of her to Peleus. Achilles might have been born a god, but he was not. He was born mortal, just as so many are, but he is different because of what his mother did to him. Achilles is the man he is because he's not a man the way that others are. Almost all of that was burned away. 

But, here and now, it seems he is his father's son: Peleus wanted Thetis, so he took her, very much against her will though very much with Zeus's; Achilles wants Troilus, so he takes him, too. 

He extricates himself from Troilus's embrace and he takes off what he's wearing. He was sent to Thymbra to kill a prince and so accordingly he wore his armour; Troilus watches as he removes his breastplate and vambraces, then his greaves. He removes the tunic underneath, removes his sandals and steps barefoot onto the cold stone floor. Troilus watches as he strokes himself to hardness. Troilus, whether bravely or naively, does the same in front of him. 

He bends him over the altar, dashing flowers and cups and bowls of offerings this way and that to make the space they need. He presses Troilus down with one palm firm between his shoulder blades. One of the bowls he's spilled was filled with olive oil and so he dips his fingers into what remains of it, then rubs them between Troilus's cheeks, against the hole he finds there. 

"Are you a virgin, prince?" he asks, his voice almost a rasp as his fingertips tease. "Has any other man had you?"

Troilus shakes his head, which is his answer. His fingers grip the altar. Achilles believes that's the truth of it; he'll be the first man and the last that Troilus ever knows. 

He slicks himself with the same part-spilled oil, from base to tip, till he's dripping with it, and Troilus turns his head and cranes his neck to look as if he cannot help but do so. Because he knows that Troilus's eyes are on him, he strokes himself slowly. Because he knows Troilus is watching, he lifts his cock just a little so that he can see the oil drip down over his balls and catch against his thighs, the whole arrangement glistening in the firelight. Troilus blushes but he does not turn away, not until Achilles's hands move from himself and back to him instead. He parts Troilus's cheeks with both his palms. He directs the tip of his phallus to slip between them, the slick length of him rubbing over his hole. 

When he pushes inside him, Troilus moans and grips more tightly at Apollo's altar till his fingers are almost uniformly white. His body is hot, a tight sheath for Achilles's cock as he seats himself inside him right down to the base. When Achilles moves in him, gripping at his hips with hands slippery with oil, Troilus pushes back against him though he curses softly against the stone. 

"You were made for this moment, Prince of Troy," Achilles says, with a catch in his voice as he flexes his hips to fuck him. He rakes his blunt nails over Troilus's perfect back, either side of his spine, raising livid red stripes in their wake. He rubs the first two fingers of his right hand between Troilus's cheeks, one either side of his own throbbing erection, to trace the rim of his tight hole. "Don't you think Apollo made you for the length of my cock? Don't you think you fit me well?" 

"Yes," Troilus replies, with one cheek pressed tight against the altar. " _Yes_ ," Troilus sobs, with one hand wrapped around his own erection. He comes with a gasp and a strangled sound that's almost as if Achilles had wrapped his hands around his throat, and he spends himself against the polished stone of Apollo's altar. Achilles believes he believes it, at least right here and now. 

The sum of Troilus's existence is, within that moment, length and girth of Achilles's cock inside him, and so he pulls out of him abruptly. He pushes him down to his knees on the floor there at Apollo's feet and he follows him down to his own knees, then pushes in again before he can shudder for the lack of him. He comes inside him moments later, teeth gritted, groaning, looking up into Apollo's stony face. A kind of warm triumph floods his veins and he wraps his arms around Troilus's slim waist. He kisses the crook of Troilus's long neck. Kneeling there, softening though still pushed deep inside him, Troilus's bare back rests against Achilles's broad chest. They breathe almost in unison. 

Achilles would like to take Troilus with him when he leaves the temple. He would bind his wrists and lash him to his chariot if that proved necessary, but he does not think it would; he believes Troilus would go with him of his own accord and lie with him in his tent on the beach where the Achaeans have made camp. Perhaps they would bathe together in the sea and later, once Apollo's Trojan sun had dried them, Achilles might lick the salt away from Troilus's tanned skin. He imagines pressing his mouth to Troilus's wrists, to his hips, to his temples by his dampened hairline, or the creases where his thighs merge with his body. He imagines the taste of his skin, of his cock, of his come, and sighs against his neck. 

Achilles would like to take him with him when he leaves, but he knows he can't. The prophecy says if Troilus dies before he's twenty, the Achaeans will succeed. Troilus was made for two things, and only two: for Achilles's cock, and for the fall of Troy. Achilles knows neither of them will live to see the latter because for all that is divine in them, for all his mother's burnings and anointings, they both remain mortal. Fuck the gods, he thinks, that gave them this strange life placed halfway between the two. Fuck Apollo, who gave the world this boy that Achilles has to take from it. 

He pulls back. He pulls out. He stands. They both shiver. 

He draws his sword and puts the tip to the base of Troilus's perfect neck; Troilus bows his head almost as if he understands that this must happen, because the gods have willed it even if the two of them do not. Achilles washes Apollo's marble feet with the blood of his beautiful son and he leaves the body there before him. It's not the kind of sacrifice a god expects, but in the end, he does at least make it quick.

This will not be the only death before the war is done, and will not be the only one at Achilles's hands, but it's one he will remember. 

And then, when it's done, he simply walks away.


End file.
